White Center Now: The blog about White Center

That’s White Center Now/West Seattle Blog video of the Seattle Fire Department Pipes and Drums Band and the Walter Kilgore Memorial Honor Guard tonight at Holy Family School (20th and Roxbury; map). They helped pay tribute to the four firefighters who lost their lives 14 years ago tonight in Seattle’s notorious Pang warehouse arson; the memorial was part of a benefit dinner will be held to raise money for scholarships to be awarded at HF by the Randy Terlicker Endowment Fund, named after a Holy Family alumnus who was one of those four lost heroes (the others: the Honor Guard’s namesake Lt. Kilgore, Lt. Greg Shoemaker, and firefighter James Brown).

SCHOOLS: No changes listed so far for Highline Public Schools. For Seattle Public Schools, they’ve announced all schools will start on time and all buses will run regular routes.

BUSES: Metro is continuing to update its “adverse weather” page with changes for specific routes. Among them, the 54, which is listed right now (6:41 am) as “does not serve White Center.”

(54 bus in trouble earlier in West Seattle)
Metro has posted its first route changes here. Among them - 21 is not operating south of Roxbury right now.

The official forecasts promise it won’t last. However, given the difficulty of accurately forecasting around here, and the track record from the recent Snowmare ‘08, take whatever action you must. Perhaps also a good idea to keep in mind that wind is supposedly to follow. Latest forecast here.

We reported New Year’s Eve that photos and video were out from a recent robbery rampage that included a December holdup at the Lucky Seven in White Center. Early this morning, after a robbery attempt at a West Seattle 7-11, Seattle Police arrested three suspects and are working right now to establish whether they are linked to this series of robberies. Here’s our full report on West Seattle Blog; we will let you know when more information is released.

Sunday’s one last day of winter break for kids in the Highline and Seattle school districts - after a longer-than-expected vacation because of the snow. School resumes in both districts on Monday (and by the way, Metro bus service is supposed to be back to normal that day, too).

Cafe Rozella, White Center’s hub and coffee house, wants to thank all our wonderful patrons for making 2008 our best year and for electing Barack Obama, President of the U.S.

We look forward to better times.  We cannot pass this opportunity to give thanks to: Mike the artist, mike the mechanic, mike the longshoreman, little mike and big mike, Cherrie, Onion, Eric the Swede, Joan, Carlos, Eduardo, Bill, Bill and Bill, Robert, Aileen, Laura, Jorge, Argelia, Paige, Eric, Vassily, Carmen, Flora, Sim, Chica, Jason, Anne, Jeremy, Austin, Ron, Gabrielle, Athena, Chad and Tracy, Andrew and Moe, Jessica, David, David and David, Ruth, Ringo, Paul, John, Maury, Rob, Gary, Gary and Marjorie, Jim, and everyone else who contributed to the wonderful community that is White Center and Cafe Rozella.  We love you all.  Truly.

Today’s the last weekday before things start revving back up to normal on Monday - and there are two things to keep in mind today: Metro is on the “partial holiday” schedule one last day (changes listed here) and most county offices/facilities are closed because of the “furlough” day (changes listed here).

Ann and I would really like to thank the White Center Community for the past year, and we hope that 09 will be just as amazing as we all hope it will be.

2009 will start with a big donation to the White Center Food Bank: Next week, a truckload of potatoes and apples is scheduled to arrive at WCFB, courtesy of the Columbia-Snake River Irrigators Association. Read full details here. (It’s been a month and a half since the big potato donation that arrived at WCFB; see our video coverage here.)

Just in case you were wondering. Here are the rules - unincorporated King County, 6 pm New Year’s Eve to 1 am New Year’s Day.

Most King County offices and facilities will be closed Friday (Jan. 2), the first of 10 “furlough days” that the county is implementing because of its budget troubles. Here are full details on what’s open and what’s not.

Just in from Seattle City Light - a news release saying what they’re doing, and what you should be doing, to be prepared - read on: Read the rest of this entry »

Just posted on partner site West Seattle Blog: An update with video and photos from a series of robberies in South Seattle/White Center/West Seattle including the December 11th holdup at Lucky Seven in WC (one of those photos, shown above). If you have any idea who these robbers are, CrimeStoppers is offering a reward: 800-222-TIPS.

Since you’ll probably sleep through it, we’re just here to note that the wind kicked up in the area around 2 am. At 3 am, it’s gusting to 27 mph at the nearby official-measurement station at Boeing Field.

The afternoon forecast update is out and there’s still a good chance of strong wind tonight/tomorrow morning, with the possibility of another round on Friday. Here’s a link to keep an eye on: Seattle City Light’s latest list of outages. Nothing on there now. Let’s hope it stays that way.

An alert from King County late today: Report storm damage ASAP. Here’s how.

Just got this advisory from the Seattle Fire Department: Holy Family School in White Center will host a Firefighter Memorial and Benefit Dinner next Monday night, 7 pm (after a 6 pm social hour). This is on the anniversary of one of the most heartbreaking and horrifying tragedies to hit the city - the Pang warehouse fire, a deliberately set fire that killed four Seattle firefighters, including a Holy Family alumnus. From the SFD media advisory:

January 5, 2009 marks 14-years since four Seattle Firefighters died in
the Mary Pang Warehouse Fire. In memory of Lieutenant Walter Kilgore,
Lieutenant Greg Shoemaker, Firefighter James Brown and Firefighter Randy
Terlicker, Holy Family Parish School in West Seattle is conducting a
Memorial and Benefit Dinner for the Randy Terlicker Endowment Fund.

Randy Terlicker was a 1974 graduate of Holy Family Parish School. The
endowment fund will provide scholarships to families who can not afford
school tuition.

The program will begin at 7:00 p.m.at Holy Family School, located at
9615 20th Avenue Southwest. The program will include a performance by
the Seattle Fire Department Pipes and Drums Band, a presentation of
colors by the Walter Kilgore Memorial Honor Guard and testimonials from
the family and friends of Randy Terlicker.

I was a newscast producer at KOMO TV (Channel 4), on duty the night this tragedy happened. Newspeople sometimes pretend they are a little bit numb to the awful things they sometimes have to report … but I can tell you that the word of four firefighters losing their lives that night, fighting flames someone started on purpose, rocked us all. The memorial for them was an amazing, massive outpouring, with their firefighting colleagues sending delegations from near and far. The sight of the memorial sculpture in Pioneer Square’s Occidental Park brings the memories back, every time. There’s a bit more about the Holy Family event on this page of the Seattle Fire Fighters Union site.

Beyond One Language – Más allá de una lengua

A literary event celebrating the Spanish language and Latino/a culture

The second in a series of popular literary readings happened on Friday, December 5th in White Center.

The goal of these events is to promote the Spanish language – as well as native Latin American languages – via literary readings by Spanish language authors. For the December 5th event, local writers Javier Amaya and Paola Casla Taylor will be reading their work. Zita Paulino will also be there, and will read the poetry of Irma Pinedo Santiago in their native Zapotec language. English translations of the readings will be provided by House of Writers / Casa de Escritores, Inc., so that non-Spanish speakers can join the celebration.  Here are some pictures from this wonderful event.

According to our favorite weather guy, Cliff Mass:

Regarding the potential big storm on Friday…it is still there (see latest forecast output attached). Once features like this get within 100 hrs out, I really start to take them seriously. But there is still considerable uncertainty. Run after run now is giving a big storm, and multiple models are showing it as well, but they are still varying widely in timing, position, and to some degree amplitude. Some of the runs are predicting a low center of less than 970 millibars. Around here that is a serious low (although nothing special in the Gulf of Alaska). Someone around here is going to get it. But who? Sort of like a bullet being fired from a shaky rifle…something is going to get hit hard…but we are not sure where.